Tuesday, July 26, 2011

This is the way it begins and ends - bare stage. I paced off every inch, side to side, front to back - walls here, doors here, furniture ... before the first tape mark was placed ﻿marking an entrance, I could see it all - every stick in place.

Here IS every stick in place, Oddly, this is very close to my original design, and a first. Normally I oversee day-to-day construction, making changes where inspiration moves me. In this case I handed drawings,color swatches and various cryptic smudges over to artist Kat Wexler, and - because life got in the way, I basically walked away until she proudly/hesitantly led me into the completed setting last night.

I had pointed out craggy texture from a few of my favorite Max Parrish paintings, and asked "Can you do the walls like this?" She could and did. The walls you see here are not painted. Instead, various bright colors were mixed with wet plaster, and the colors were trowled on (rather than painted).

Wow. I love it.

But the bottom line is this; does it work? Granted, this is a Steinbeck work, dark by nature. But is it too oppressive, too distracting, or does it enhance the mood? Here are a couple of rehearsal cast pictures. You tell me.

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In Xanadu did Kubla Kahna stately pleasure-dome decree:where Alph, the sacred river, ranthrough caverns measureless to mandown to a sunless sea.So twice five miles of fertile groundwith walls and towers were girdled round:And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;And here were forests ancient as the hills,enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

Jack Bunny is the alter ego of a playwright, theatrical director, and drama critic. If you are at a party and see a 150 pound rabbit at the punch bowl, it might be him!

(On the other hand, it might also mean that perhaps you should step away from the punch bowl for awhile.)

Available Plays

ANOTHER DUMB GHOST STORY(Full length)

THE REVENANT(Full length)

CORIE(Full length)

MORGAN(Full length)

VOLLEYS(Full length)

ELYCE TIMES ONE(Full length - written with J.E. Ocean)

THE DISENCHANTED FROG(Children's One-act)

THE ART OF BUILDING BRIDGES(One-act)

FROM MY VANTAGE POINT(One-act)

THE TRIAL(One-act)

WHAT'S NEW IN LATHERDUE?(Reader theatre One-act)

ROUGH DRAFT(One-act)

THE GRAND GILDER(One-act)

Old friend remembered

FAVORITE QUOTES

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.George Bernard Shaw

I hate writing, I love having written.Dorothy Parker

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.

Will Rogers

It must be summer. I can smell California burning.

J.E. Ocean

Starbucks is where certain relationships go to die.

Samantha Stover

I can only answer the question 'What am I to do?' if I can answer the prior question, 'Of what story do I find myself a part?'

Alisdair MacIntyre

Walmart always makes me cry ...

Q

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.

Mark Twain

The Bible in the hand of one man is more dangerous than a whiskey bottle in the hand of another.

Harper Lee

Can people stop dying please? Just for a little bit. maybe.

Samantha Stover

Mettle not in the affairs of Dragons, for thou art crunchy and good with ketchup.

Unknown

He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart.

Proverbs 11:29

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned/nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

William Congreve

This above all: to thine own self be true.And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.

William Shakespeare

In my many years I have come to the conclusion that one useless person is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a Congress.

John Adams

Wearing underwear is as formal as I get.

Ernest Hemingway

"Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The Curtain ..."

Our revels now are ended.

These, our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air:

And like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.